Do you find the world a fascinating place? How many worlds are there out there? There are so many amazing things going on in the world, so many facts to learn and so many mysteries to solve. So join my Worlds of Fascination for a articles on everything from the profound to the trivial, the odd to the mysterious.

Monday, 5 November 2012

Have you heard of the ghosts of haunted Rye? The history of
Britain is long and has frequently been bloody, so it has perhaps not
surprising that there are so many stories of hauntings and the paranormal. And Rye is one of the towns that is most famed
for its ghosts and hauntings. Rye was
once one of England’s ancient Cinque Ports and is perhaps the quaintest and
most picturesque old town in the whole of the United Kingdom. The position of Rye, high on the hill, commands
beautiful views across Romney Marshes and to the sea. Rye was heavily fortified in medieval times
although only the Landgate, Ypres Tower and a small part of the town wall still
survive. The centre of Rye is filled
with sloping cobbled streets, 16th century half-timbered houses, old
inns and little shops. The town used to
be a thriving port before the harbour silted up and its colourful history contains
many tales of smugglers, pirates and the revenue men who tried to catch them
and stop their illicit trade. Indeed
during the 18th century Rye’s prosperity was very heavily dependent
on the smuggling trade, much to the dismay of the evangelical preacher John
Wesley who visited the town in 1773. It
has also been home to many writers in its time, including Henry James, E F
Benson, Joseph Conrad, G K Chesterton and H G Wells.

Mermaid Street, Rye

So where in this old town do you go to possibly see one of
its famous ghosts?

Lamb House

This old house was built in the 1723 and is now owned by the
National Trust. Henry James moved into
Lamb House in 1898 and his later novels were written there. Henry James claimed
that a ghost of an old lady used to visit him and help him with his
writing. Poltergeist activity has also
been recorded in Lamb and the house is also said to be haunted by a man called
Allen Grebell who was murdered by a butcher.

Mermaid Inn

Reputed to be one of the most haunted pubs in the United
Kingdom, the Mermaid Inn dates to the early 15th century, though it
is thought that parts of the cellars and the foundations may date as far back
as 1150. During the 18th
century the Mermaid Inn notorious for being a smuggler’s haunt, and the inn has
concealed staircases, rooms with moving wall panels, an a concealed entrance to
a ‘Priest’s Hole’. Room 16 of the
Mermaid Inn is known as the Elizabethan Chamber and during the 1930’s a guest
sleeping in the room witness a pair of phantom duellers fighting with
rapiers. The ghost who won the duel is
then said to have dragged the loser’s dead body through the Inn and dropped it
through a trapdoor. A grey lady is also
said to haunt the upper floors of the building, with Room 5, which is known as
the Nutcracker suite, being one of her regular locations to materialise. She is seen drifting through the closed door
and halts once at the foot of the bed before disappearing. It is thought that she is the ghost of a girl
who was murdered for being too indiscreet about her smuggler lover’s illicit
activities and that she is now endlessly searching through Mermaid Inn to find
her murderous beau.

The Mermaid Inn, Rye

In rooms 10 and 18 a man who fades away has been seen
entering and leaving, and he is often seen disappearing through the wall. In
room 1 a lady wearing pale garments has been seen sitting in a chair by the
fireplace, and even guests who have not seen the apparition have complained
that they have hung their clothes over the chair at night only to find them
soaked with water the next morning. One
of the rocking chairs at the Mermaid Inn is has also been seen rocking of its
own accord and the chair cushion was seen to squeeze down as though an
invisible someone had sat down on it.

Monastery Hall

In Rye’s Monastery Hall during the 1940’s a line of monks
was seen in the hall and gardens. This
may have been related to the digging up of several skeletons in the garden at
that time and there was some evidence that they had been buried alive.

Needles Passage

In Needles Passage echoing footsteps can be heard by people
walking through the passage although there nobody can be seen when they pass
by.

Reysons Farm

In the 1930s loud footsteps were heard going up and down the
stairs and the ghost of a man was also seen at night.

The Union Inn

The Union Inn is an old, medieval building and has been a
pub since 1420. The name of the Inn
probably derives from the union of England and Scotland at the accession to the
throne of King James I, who had previously been James VI of Scotland. The inn boasts the ghost of a little girl who
was often seen wandering through the kitchen and restaurant of this old inn in the
mid 1990’s, many of the people spotting her believing her to be real. It is also thought that the inn is haunted by
the ghost of an unmarried mother who died when she fell down the cellar
steps.

Rye Town Centre

In the town centre of Rye, two female ghosts have been
observed walking down Mermaid Street wearing long dresses and a little girl
dressed in blue has been seen crossing the street. In Watchbell Street the ghost of a little boy
wrapped in a white sheet has been seen and disembodied footsteps have also been
heard. In the Old Tuck Shoppe in Market
Street there is said to be the ghost of a grey lady.

Turkey Cock Lane

Ghostly sounds like those of a turkey gobbling used to be
heard in Turkey Cock Lane. They
apparently emanated from the ghost of a monk who broke his vows of chastity and
went mad after he was bricked up alive after being caught trying to elope with
a local girl that he had fallen in love with.
The shade of the monk is apparently still sometimes seen, but the spectral
sounds are no longer heard

.

White Vine Hotel

From November 1995 the White Vine Hotel in Rye has been a
focus of poltergeist activity. The
kitchen gets rearranged by unseen hands and food gets moved around and
hidden. Sometimes the poltergeist
activity moves to the bedrooms, but always eventually comes back to the
kitchen.

So could Rye be the most haunted town in Britain? If you wanted to visit haunted Rye for
yourself, there is a good range of accommodation available from self-catering
through to hotels and old inns. For a
taste of the paranormal, try staying among the ghosts at the Mermaid Inn itself
or Rye Heritage Centre runs a Ghost Tour Experience which you can book onto. There is plenty to see in the old town, such
as Rye Castle Museum, and some glorious walks in the surrounding
countryside. So have a happy ghost
hunting break in ancient Rye!

Thursday, 1 November 2012

Did you know that the origins of Father Christmas and Santa
Claus lie with an early Christian Saint called Nicholas of Myra? He came from the Lycian port of Myra in south
west Turkey and lived in the fourth century AD.
He was an early Christian bishop and he probably died on 6th
December as this was celebrated as his feast day in the medieval calendar. He was regarded as a patron of sailors and
navigation. It is thought that he was a survivor of the persecutions of Diocletian,
and that he had been exiled and imprisoned.
Later accounts state that he attended the Council of Nicaea and argued
against the Arian heresy.

Old Father Christmas

There are several legends that surround St Nicholas. One that is credited with being the legend
that linked St Nicholas to gift giving is that he was told of a man who could
not get the money together to provide dowries for his three daughters. Because of this man’s pecuniary difficulties,
he was planning to send them to work in a brothel. St Nicholas reputedly saved them from this
fate by throwing three bags of gold through their window one night. This legend led to St Nicholas being regarded
as a protector of marriage.

Another legend of St Nicholas is that he found out that the
cook of an inn offered the meat of children that he killed to his patrons. When he investigated, he found the bodies of
three small boys pickled in a tub. He
blessed the bodies of the dead children, which instantly restored them to life.
Because of this legend, St Nicholas became
a patron of children and it became a custom in some countries, such as the
Netherlands and Belgium, to give children presents on his feast day of 6th
December.

He was buried in the cathedral church in Myra and a unique
relic called manna was said to form in his grave. This manna was a miraculous liquid that was
purported to heal people. The bones of St Nicholas were brought to Bari in
Italy in 1087 by a group of Greek merchants, after the Turks captured Myra, and
buried under the altar of a new church, the Basilica San Nicola, inaugurated by
Pope Urban II. Some of the bones were
taken to Port in France and others were taken to Worms in Germany. Many churches in Europe were dedicated to St
Nicholas, especially in the ports of the Hanseatic League. The reformation in many parts of Europe,
brought to an end the veneration of Catholic saints, but the old customs and
legends of St Nicholas persisted and developed into modern times.

It came to be believed that St Nicholas judged whether or
not children had been good or bad and in the Netherlands he was supposed to
ride his white horse across the sky, dropping presents down the chimneys of the
good children on the evening of 5th/6th December. They would find these gifts the next
morning, and they would often be hidden in shoes. If the child had been bad during the year, it
was believed that a small bag of salt would be left in place of the presents. Hiding
the gifts in the shoes was a reflection of the older custom of putting money
into poor people’s shoes on the feast of St Nicholas. He became known as
Sinterklaas, and actors would dress up in bishop’s robes and visit children and
tell them how to behave. In Germany they
developed the custom of electing a boy bishop on December 6th.

Sinterklaas is said to have had a helper or helpers, known
as ‘Black Pete’, and they carry a bag containing sweets for good children and a
swatch of willow branches with which to spank naughty children. This is linked to the legend of St Nicholas
saving the lives of three small Moorish boys who had been condemned to death
for a crime that they had not committed.
In gratitude they stayed with the Saint and helped him to deliver the
gifts from the rooftops. The dark colour
of their skin is said to be linked to the Moorish origins of the three boys
rescued by or because they are associated with chimney sweeps. Traditionally
Sinterklaas and Black Pete arrive in the Netherlands and Belgium on a steamboat
from Spain, and nowadays they are then paraded through the towns, cheered on by
crowds and even broadcast on television.
Sweets and ginger biscuits are tossed to the children in the crowds and traditional
Sinterklaas songs are sung.

Sinterklaas is the basis for the American figure of Santa
Claus. New York started life as an old
Dutch colonial town called New Amsterdam which had been traded by the Dutch for
other territories. It is believed that
during the American War of Independence, because the customs surrounding
Sinterklaas were not of English origin, they were changed and incorporated into
a figure called Santa Claus. In 1835 the
Saint Nicholas Society was formed by a group of New Yorkers, including
Washington Irving, to celebrate the heritage of New York City, and in 1850 a
teacher called Jan Schenkman published an illustrated children’s book called
‘St Nicholas and His Helper’ which introduced the concept of Christmas presents
being delivered down the chimney.

The modern American Santa Claus is depicted as a rotund
figure that is dressed in a red suit with white fur rather than a bishop’s
robes and has a sleigh with flying reindeer rather than a flying horse. Drawings by Thomas Nast in Harper’s
Illustrated Weekly in 1863-66 encapsulated this modern vision of Santa, and
this figure was used by several large advertisers such as Coca-Cola. Santa Claus is believed to live for most of
the year at the North Pole with his wife Mrs Claus, his myriad helper elves and
the magical flying reindeer, where they make all the toys that they will need
for the coming Christmas. Children now write
a letter to Santa just before Christmas that lists all the toys that they would
like Santa to bring them and outlining how good they have been throughout the
year. In turn, Santa Claus is said to
make a list of all the children who were ‘naughty or nice’ that he uses to
calculate how many Christmas presents each child is to receive. Especially naughty children are believed to
be left a lump of coal on Christmas Eve by Santa rather than presents. It has also become a tradition to leave out a
glass of milk and a plate of cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and some
carrots for the reindeer.

The English Father Christmas was initially represented as a
Christmas visitor and the personification of the spirit of Christmas, rather
than an entity that delivered presents at Christmastime. In
Saxon times, they had a ‘King Frost’ or ‘King Winter’, who was someone who was
chosen, dressed in green and given a big hat or crown to wear. ‘King Winter’
was believed to be able to make the winter weather less harsh and help them get
through to the spring. In the Middle
Ages in England the local parish would hire an actor or borrow a religious
person from another parish to disguise themselves and go around the homes in
the area to see which families had any problems. They would then go back and report to the
Parish Priest, who would then try to make sure that those families received
help.

Father Christmas

An archaic version of
Father Christmas was mentioned in an old carol in the fifteenth century, and he
became more popular with the publication of Ben Johnson’s ‘Captaine Christmas’
in the seventeenth century. The Puritans
tried to do away with all English Christmas traditions, including that of
Father Christmas, but they were not successful and Father Christmas continued
to make his Yuletide visits. He was
often depicted as a pagan figure with either ivy or icicles around his head. The
whole concept of Christmas went through a great revival during the Victorian
era in England, and by the 1870’s Father Christmas was delivering Christmas
presents and hanging Christmas Stockings from the end of beds just like the
American Santa Claus.

These days the English Father Christmas and the American
Santa Claus are almost indistinguishable and a fat jolly old gentleman in a red
suit with a white beard can be found in Santa’s Grotto in most major department
stores in the towns of America and the United Kingdom. He is surrounded by elves giving out candy
canes, no longer admonishes naughty children and hands out presents. He is now a totally benign figure that adorns
our Christmas cards and decorations, and slides down our chimneys on Christmas
Eve to stuff our stockings with gifts!

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About Me

Writer, blogger and hypnotherapist.
Author of the Aten Sequence Books - science fantasy books for young adults set in Ancient Egypt. The first in the series, Pharaoh's Gold, is now available to download at Amazon